Digital Insight for Business Marketing

4 Tactics for a Better LinkedIn Content Strategy

By now, it might be common knowledge that without solid distribution tactics backing your content strategy, there is little to no chance your post getting picked up by your readers. So what do you do? You focus on strong SEO tactics, leverage email marketing, and of course you turn to your social media channels.

Most people focus on the massive following on Facebook, and try to take advantage of the fast paced but heavily populated Twitter, but what about LinkedIn?

Interestingly, LinkedIn is the largest business networking site out there. However it is often overlooked when it comes to strategic content distribution as it is B2B centric. But why? With 500 million active users, among which are some of the most influential market authorities, a strong LinkedIn content strategy can work wonders for your business content and your brand.

This is precisely why we’ve compiled 4 quick and easy strategies you can leverage when trying to promote your next post on LinkedIn.

1. Leverage the Power of a Showcase Page

In most cases, you have your personal profile and a company page, but what about a showcase page? For those who were unfamiliar, a showcase page acts along the same lines as your company page, but is more focused on a single aspect of your brand (be it a specific branch, a specific service, niche etc).

So how can a LinkedIn Showcase Page help you? Well it can:

Build brand awareness

Build thought leadership

Support lead generation

This however is highly dependent on what you post. Brand awareness and thought leadership can go hand in hand as long as you focus on posting valuable content for your audience. Consider including “how-to” articles, actionable posts regarding the specific niche, free ebooks, and even relevant case studies.

The above can eventually convert a visitor to a to lead. It is said that a prospect will read an average of 10 posts before considering a purchase decision. So be sure to feature a good number of top and middle of the funnel pieces.

It doesn’t all have to be about your business though, also consider including topical posts about new and/or trending matters within the industry. This will not only build your authority as a thought leader, it might even constitute you as your readers’ main source of information and news, thus coming back for more.

LinkedIn Marketing Tip: Aim to post a between 1-3 posts per day and always engage with your readers by replying to their questions and comments. Furthermore, never forget to monitor the performance of your posts. Analyze page followers, engagement, clicks, and comments to see what is working the best.

2. Unravel the Hidden Potential of Slideshare

Despite being the internet’s largest professional content sharing platform, Slideshare is often overlooked as a distribution platform by many businesses. The tool allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations, webinar recordings, company videos, infographics, and a plethora of other visual or multimedia content. More specifically, it can:

Build brand awareness

Build thought leadership

Enhance SEO

Support lead generation

But to achieve the above, there are certain things you need to be cognizant about. Once again, your content needs to offer value to your audience, and must showcase your expertise and authority.

Be sure your content has rich descriptive titles, meta-descriptions, and tags featuring winnable keywords. This will boost the chances of the posts being picked up by Google.

LinkedIn Marketing Tip: upload on a consistent basis, at least once a week to condition your visitors. It would be wise to group relevant pieces of content together (playlists), making it easier for visitors to browse and discover additional related content.

Highlighting decks on your profile page can also go a long way, helping people who visit your main profile discover the rich content you post on Slideshare.

3. Use Sponsored and Direct Sponsored Content

If you have (and are willing) to expend some resources for content promotion look no further; but before we move on a quick distinction:

Sponsored Content is meant for reaching a specifically targeted segment of audience that lies beyond those who currently follow your Company Page.

Direct Sponsored Content allows you to personalize messages and content and target them towards a specific audience without having to originate the posts on your Company Page.

These tactics are not only great for creating brand awareness and visibility, they're also a good method of lead generation. This is mainly because they leverage the peer sharing that occurs naturally on social media (and thus LinkedIn as well).

Content you can consider sharing via the above methods include new or successful blog posts, case studies, webinars or webinar recordings, company news, or groundbreaking research.

LinkedIn Marketing Tip: Start by creating compelling visuals. Visuals play a massive role in today’s marketing and can be an easy way to make your content stand out from the rest. Just be sure to follow LinkedIn’s guidelines when it comes to image size (ideally keep your image between 1200x627 pixels).

Moreover, be sure to run your sponsored content between 2-4 times a week for about a month, and always monitor performance, test, and modify.

It would be a good idea to use URL tracking codes to monitor clicks, site visits, and conversion rates in order to see what drives the biggest bang for your buck.

Finally, don’t just stick to a one-size fits all approach. Personalize and modify each campaign for a specific audience, while allocating more resources to the segment with the highest engagement rate.

4. Publish on LinkedIn

Yes you read correctly, the final tactic on our list is to simply publish on your LinkedIn profile. While this might seem like a no-brainer in terms of a well rounded content strategy, it is often a tactic that is completely overlooked.

Now by saying this we don’t mean treat LinkedIn like an additional blog. The content you post here should be a “lessons learned” type. Leverage your years of experience, your successes and your failures, and create pieces your audience can relate to and learn from.

These kinds of posts are often very interesting and can substantially boost thought leadership and credibility within your industry, but it is not something that should be done over your normal content. Posts such pieces maybe once a month, and always link back to your other material (especially if your other content is related to what you are talking about).

This type content is also great for building engagement with your audience, as it introduces a more humanizing element, making it easier to connect with readers down the line, and promote some of your other pieces or offers.

Note: While not explicitly said in every segment of our list, be sure to always monitor the performance of your posts and strategies. Keep an eye out for views, clicks, comments, and any other type of engagement to gauge the health of your efforts. This will not only help you see what is working in your current content strategy, it will also show you areas which require refinement and retesting.

And there you have it, 4 tactics that can significantly increase your LinkedIn content strategy. Are there any we missed. Do you use any that are not on the list? Let us know.